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Jeff Bezos Announces $2 Billion Philanthropic Effort To Help Homeless Families and Start Preschools in Low-income Communities (nbcnews.com)

Posted by msmash on from the good-deeds dept.

Rick Schumann writes: Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and his wife MacKenzie on Thursday announced a $2 billion philanthropic effort aimed at helping homeless families and starting preschools in low-income communities. Bezos, believed to be the world's richest man, with a net worth of more than $160 billion, announced the new program on Twitter. "We're excited to announce the Bezos Day One Fund," he wrote. The fund will be split between the Day 1 Families Fund, which Bezos wrote will "issue annual leadership awards to organizations and civic groups doing compassionate, needle-moving work to provide shelter and hunger support to address the immediate needs of young families." The Day 1 Academies Fund "will launch and operate a network of high-quality, full-scholarship, Montessori-inspired preschools in underserved communities," Bezos said. Bezos said that the preschools will be directly operated by the organization and "use the same set of principles that have driven Amazon." "Most important among those will be genuine, intense customer obsession," Bezos wrote. "The child will be the customer." Bezos quoted the poet William Butler Yeats: "Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire."

67 of 146 comments (clear)

  1. LOL. by olsmeister · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Half of the recipients probably will be Amazon employees.

    1. Re:LOL. by owlaf · · Score: 1

      Ha, you beat me

    2. Re:LOL. by RickyShade · · Score: 1

      I mean, Amazon employs a LOT of people. Of the roughly 100 friends/family I keep up with on Facebook, 3 of them are employed by Amazon. Maybe one day we'll all be Amazon employees in one way or another.

    3. Re:LOL. by mi · · Score: 1

      Half of the recipients probably will be Amazon employees.

      In 2017 Amazon had a total of 566K employees. Various estimates claim, as many as 10% of them are on Food Stamps — or living with someone, who is. That makes for 56.6K people.

      Dividing half of the $2 billion pledged by Bezos over the 56600 amounts to a rather generous $17+K per person...

      --
      In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
    4. Re:LOL. by JMJimmy · · Score: 2

      But it doesn't get the tax write off that way

    5. Re:LOL. by bobstreo · · Score: 1

      Half of the recipients probably will be Amazon employees.

      Oh come on, there's plenty of Wal-Mart employees that could qualify too...

    6. Re:LOL. by Mashiki · · Score: 1

      Oh come on, there's plenty of Wal-Mart employees that could qualify too...

      Difference is walmart pays over the minimum wage and offers healthcare insurance to PT and FT employees, and gives them upto 20%(people who are struggling financially can get even higher discounts) off in store purchases and that counts for everything from the cellphone kiosk to the McD's or other fast/food loctions, amazon only offers 10% on their own items or none at all. That's in Canada and the US. You can bash them however much you want, but in general they're far better as a 'corporate citizen' then other companies especially when their position in employment isn't meant to be a stay-long-term job, but as a foothold. Though there's plenty of people who climb up the ladder into management and even internal corporate positions, and they have the policy of hiring inside for them instead of outside.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
    7. Re:LOL. by kenh · · Score: 1

      That's a one-time gift, then the $2BN is gone, and the net change is what?

      --
      Ken
    8. Re: LOL. by Mashiki · · Score: 1

      You can't pay under the minimum wage. Stores have been caught, indeed but that's not their corporate policy either, stores that have been caught doing that have had their entire management staff terminated. Every person from the lowly floor manager right up to the person in charge of the store. The store closures though? No that's shady, there was a case in Quebec where they attempted to unionize and they simply shut it down. Walmart got sued over it, they've lost every case on it. Simply put? It's still not over, but the courts are getting tired of it, so are the appeals courts. Expect the judgement to be overzealous in response to that, with employees getting 5-20yr backpay plus interest.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
    9. Re: LOL. by kenh · · Score: 1

      I read here that $25/hr was a good wage in the 1950's...

      $50K/yr (40 hr/wk x 50 weeks/year = $50K/year) would have been a VERY good wage in 1950s - the average was more like $5K/yr which, adjusted for inflation would be $25/hr today.

      modern people are expected to work 40+ hours a week to get less than 1/3rd of that.

      No, they aren't. Median income in US is $61K - that means half of all Americans earn more than $61K, half less.

      In America we've redefined "full time" to be 30+ hours/wk, which means part-time employees are only able to work 29 or fewer hours/week lest they be considered full-time employees and cost their employer mandated insurance subsidies.

      In 2016, 79.9 million workers age 16 and older in the United States were paid at hourly rates, representing 58.7 percent of all wage and salary workers. Among those paid by the hour, 701,000 workers earned exactly the prevailing federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour.

      There are an estimated 701K workers earning minimum wage (one-third of $25/hr) of the nearly 80 million hourly workers, or about 1% of all hourly workers.

      --
      Ken
    10. Re: LOL. by pnutjam · · Score: 2

      Your Median Income number is for Household Income. If you didn't know that, your welcome. If you did know that, quit lying to people.

      --
      Cheap storage VM.
  2. idea by religionofpeas · · Score: 5, Interesting

    He could give his employees decent salaries. That would help.

    1. Re:idea by TFlan91 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Amazon has 566,000 employees (source).

      A cynic would say that is only a one time payout of ~$3,533 per employee. A realist would understand that only the bottom rungs of the income ladder should get this money, so let's redo the math:

      Amazon has "125,000 full-time hourly associates in the U.S" (source).

      Now it's a one time payout of $16,000!

      A "warehouse associate" earns ~$13/hr (source).

      That is a staggering (/s) $27,040 per year.

      Does Bezos really think that the overhead of starting, yet another, charity and its administrative costs is cheaper than just giving his lowest level employees a decent living wage?

      This announcement says, yes, he does think that. But you say, that's just stupid.

      So a then you would say, who benefits?

      The Day 1 Academies Fund "will launch and operate a network of high-quality, full-scholarship, Montessori-inspired preschools in underserved communities," Bezos said.

      Bezos said that the preschools will be directly operated by the organization and "use the same set of principles that have driven Amazon."

      "Most important among those will be genuine, intense customer obsession," Bezos wrote. "The child will be the customer."

      (source)

      "The child will be the customer."...

      In the age of DeVos, Bezos is going to open private charter schools, for the youngest among us, and run them like a business, but the difference is that the "child will be the customer".

      Smell something?

      Would someone learn the likes and dislikes of these children and slowly build an "anonymized" ad profile for that child, following them throughout their life span, knowing exactly what products they are likely and not likely to buy?

      Now the decision to pass over that wage increase and open a "charity" makes sense.

    2. Re:idea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Maybe he sees down the road a bit further than just doling out a one time bonus that will only make a temporary impact on some employees.

      Low income community youth suffer a great disadvantage when it comes to pre-school development. They struggle to catch up once school starts. Finding ways to get more of these kids into a positive environment sooner in life may be the thing the break the vicious cycle for more of them.

      But hey, let's let the warehouse workers party and get new cars instead.

    3. Re:idea by Mashiki · · Score: 2

      What continues to surprise me is that the warehouse workers simply haven't revolted over this. This is Canada, but it seems more and more that there's simply a lack of employees wanting to do something over it. Back in the 90's, I did a stint at a small company warehouse. These guys were small, had 3 plants in Canada, 2 in the US, 1 in Europe. The min. wage was around $7/hr, I was making $13/hr the second I walked in the door with no experience. A decade ago when I wanted to earn some extra money, I did a stint at what's called a National Parts Distribution Center or NPDC by the big auto companies, or gigantic fucking warehouses that supply entire sections of North America and can backfill auto parts plants thousands of components(hoods and doors, down to entire dashboard assemblies or just the ECU) at a time. Walking in the door, they paid me $21.75/hr(part-time), 3mo I'd have benefits, provided lift truck training, and offered "shunt" or A(truck heavy) and AZ(tractor trailer+air brake) D-Class(license for vehicles weighing 11,000kg+ but not a tractor-trailer) for anyone who wanted them.

      Really all this screams to me is that amazon is massively heavy handed on workers trying to unionize, secure any type of improvement to their job positions and so on.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
    4. Re:idea by quanminoan · · Score: 2

      These guys should learn from Ford who doubled pay and reduced hours -- you make your workers happy they will come around and work harder for the company, less turnover, less sick days, etc.

    5. Re:idea by TFlan91 · · Score: 1

      Do you seriously think this $2 billion is all he will give to these charities and that this $2 billion is all these charities will ever need?

      If so, then this an even bigger con.

      If not, then you've answered your own question. Any money going to further support these charities could be use to make that one-time payout a permanent wage increase.

    6. Re:idea by TFlan91 · · Score: 1

      Nah, man, you're just trolling.

    7. Re:idea by kiminator · · Score: 1

      It's not a lack of desire. It's a lack of power. If the employees depend upon their job for their livelihood, it's really, really hard for any of them to speak out about it. Employee protections in Washington (as in most of the US) are pretty bare, so it's not hard at all for Amazon to fire its workers here. So yes, many Amazon workers are finding it very, very difficult. But the employees also feel that they don't have other options.

      One major issue is that most people who work at close to minimum wage have essentially no savings, which means that they can't afford any break in income at all. The thought of having to take the time to find a job after getting fired for standing up for themselves can be truly daunting when it means they may have to rely on friends or family for support (if they have anybody that can provide that kind of help), and may have to go hungry or lose their apartment.

      Making all of this even worse is that even where there are laws in place to protect employees, those laws often rely upon the employee to hire their own lawyer, which can be an expense that is far, far too high for many.

      I'm pretty sure that if minimum wages increased enough, one of the main effects of that increase would be an increase in worker bargaining.

    8. Re:idea by Mashiki · · Score: 1

      I'm pretty sure that if minimum wages increased enough, one of the main effects of that increase would be an increase in worker bargaining.

      Doesn't work out like that sadly. We just saw that here in Ontario, the previous government bumped the minimum wage up fast, first quarter of implementation and we lost ~80k jobs. Second quarter ~68k jobs. New hires over both quarters? 7k jobs FT, no PT. That means there's ~141k people out there now earning less money because companies cut back on the number of people employed.

      Oh and round it out with the giant shitshow of Trudeau and Co., and NAFTA? BNN is now estimating ~690k job losses over the next 3 quarters. That would be among the biggest job losses since the 1970's, if anything most of what's happening in Canada right now is a replay of the late 1970's and early 80's, when the economy crashed, hyperinflation kicked in and Trudeau Sr., implemented wage and price controls.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
  3. Double-edge sword by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    If these extremely wealthy folks would take a smaller salary and bay better or employ more, would homeless be as bad as it is today? Im sure its been worse throughout history but today we have the ability to end hunger and provide adequate shelter and meet most medical needs.

    Yet wr keep fighting wars to protect these bery rich folks and wallstreet.

    Maybe its not that simple but seems to be.

    1. Re: Double-edge sword by togofspookware · · Score: 1

      But they'd also run out of money to buy shitty politicians to fuck us all over constantly, so it'd still be a win.

      --
      Duct tape, XML, democracy: Not doing the job? Use more.
    2. Re:Double-edge sword by alvinrod · · Score: 1

      Im sure its been worse throughout history but today we have the ability to end hunger and provide adequate shelter and meet most medical needs.

      A good chunk of the homeless population (at least in the U.S.) are the kind of people with some form of mental illness who would have been institutionalized. However, there were some major shifts in public opinion regarding psychiatric hospitals and mental health institutions, particularly in the 70's for a variety of reasons, but this lead to a lot of these being closed without a lot of forethought or planning into new resources for handling the problem. This invariably led to a big spike in homelessness.

      The problem is that there isn't a lot you can do to help those people. Some are not mentally capable of holding down a job and some may not be mentally capable of realizing that holding down a job would be a good thing to do. There are still a good number of people who are classified as temporary homeless that are in that situation for a variety of reasons (lost a job and couldn't get anything else, young teens or adults thrown out of home, etc.) that are relatively easy to lift out of homelessness. They mainly just need a place to stay while they get a job and transition back to more permanent housing.

      The second group are not who most people think of as homeless when they talk about people shitting on the streets in San Francisco or living under a bridge in LA. The first group is not something that "the rich" can solve, and they can't really solve the second either. If they could, it would be just as easy for you to give all of those homeless people high-paying jobs as it would be for some rich person to do it. Rich people who continue to pay others more than their labor can be sold for in turn will soon find themselves depleted of capital and poor.

      You yourself are probably just as capable as they are of actually putting a dent in the problem. You've likely got a spare couch that someone could crash on while trying to get back on their feet, and you probably know a fair number of people who might be looking for someone to do some manner of work. That's exactly what the second group of people need. An opportunity to find work and earn a living and a place to stay while finding and applying for job positions.

    3. Re:Double-edge sword by werepants · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The first group is not something that "the rich" can solve, and they can't really solve the second either.

      That's exactly what the second group of people need. An opportunity to find work and earn a living and a place to stay while finding and applying for job positions.

      Actually, "the rich" can, or at least we as a society can. Utah has had a lot of success giving the homeless exactly this - basic housing while they get back on their feet. It's cheaper, on the whole, than the police, ER, and jail costs that we would otherwise incur. It's not a silver bullet (nothing ever is) but there are meaningful policy steps that we can take to improve the situation.

    4. Re: Double-edge sword by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      if you took all the money from 'the rich' and used it to help the poor/homeless it would work, until a year or two after starting 'the rich' will run out of money to fund this.

      If you took all the money from the rich and used it to help the poor, the rich would have it all back within a year or two because they own everything and the poor would spend their money with their businesses.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  4. Start with your own workers first by xack · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Proper toilets for a start instead of making your workers go in bottles.

    1. Re:Start with your own workers first by kenh · · Score: 1

      Wow. The workers choose to go in bottles because their non-Amazon employers have them on unreasonable schedules, not because Jeff Bezos denies them bathrooms.

      --
      Ken
    2. Re:Start with your own workers first by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Temp companies are used for throwaway workforce, which is another bad thing.

  5. do what now? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    and "use the same set of principles that have driven Amazon."

    So slave labor, minimum wage, shit working conditions...

    1. Re:do what now? by kelemvor4 · · Score: 2

      and "use the same set of principles that have driven Amazon."

      So slave labor, minimum wage, shit working conditions...

      You beat me to it. I bet those preschool teachers are going to be hating life!

  6. More NGO stuff. Goody. by Tailhook · · Score: 2

    Lets make everything Haiti.

    --
    Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
  7. I Mean by American+AC+in+Paris · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This is great. Now other people in need can benefit from Bezos' magnanimity, just like his warehouse employees do.

    --

    Obliteracy: Words with explosions

  8. He makes $260 million every day by rsilvergun · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is about 8 days pay for him. That sounds like a lot (8 days pay for me is around $1800 bucks) but if I give $1800 to charity that's a big impact on my life. When you're pulling in $260 million a day it's hardly noticeable.

    I'm fed up with ultra rich trying to buy us off with token charitable donation in the hopes we don't demand they take care of their workers. He can start by paying his employees enough that they're not living in the parking lot of his warehouses (excuse me, "fullfillment centers") and they can get off food stamps. Then let's see him give enough to charity that it actually impacts his quality of life.

    As it stands I feel like we're being made to go begging to the rich for the basic things needed to run a country and a society...

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
    1. Re:He makes $260 million every day by kenh · · Score: 2

      He does not make $260M/day - that's asinine, $260M x 365 days/year = $94BN/year

      You are confusing his stock appreciation with salary/bonuses. Unrealized earnings aren't income.

      --
      Ken
    2. Re:He makes $260 million every day by alvinrod · · Score: 2

      He doesn't make anywhere near that. What you meant to say is that his stock valuation increases by that much (and I'm somewhat suspect of your figure as that works out to about $90 billion per year, which is a little over 50% of his current net worth) every day. Even trying to sell ten billion dollars worth of that stock (a little over a months worth of value according to your dubious figures) would likely drive the price down severely as it would represent several thousand times the typical trade volume for Amazon.

      I'm fed up with clueless people making impassioned pleas and ignorant rants using bad data and a clear lack of basic reasoning. Also, if you didn't know, we're already having the rich finance the country. The 1% that everyone likes to complain about pay over a third of all income taxes. The bottom half, pay under 5%. The government spending as a percentage of GDP keeps going up over time and yet none of these problems seem to get solved even with all of this government intervention (and several seem to get worse!), so it's little wonder that the people stuck footing the bill are annoyed.

  9. Yo, Jeff! by AVryhof · · Score: 1

    https://www.syracuse.com/polit...

    --
    Make America grate again!
  10. I think he was misquated by lbmouse · · Score: 1

    Should have been: "Most important among those will be genuine, intense customer loyalty"

  11. Won't change a thing Jeff by IWantMoreSpamPlease · · Score: 1

    you'll still be an asshole.
    Just a slightly less rich one.

    --
    So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
    1. Re:Won't change a thing Jeff by kenh · · Score: 1

      And a whole lot of teachers will be hired, classrooms will be built, and the poorest among us, for a while, will have a slightly better shot at "making it" than they did before he gave the money.

      --
      Ken
  12. This seems counterproductive by TraumaFox · · Score: 1

    The better-educated our children become, the less likely they will be to work for Amazon.

  13. Livable Wages by sdinfoserv · · Score: 3, Interesting

    If Bezos paid his warehouse slaves a livable wage, there would many fewer poor. But then he wouldn't be worth $163B...
    Think of it this way, you could give EVERY SINGLE AMAZON employee (all 563,000) a one time bonus of $177,500, and Bezos would still be worth $63 Billion dollars.
    How much does a king need?

    1. Re: Livable Wages by c6gunner · · Score: 2

      Think of it this way, you could give EVERY SINGLE AMAZON employee (all 563,000) a one time bonus of $177,500, and Bezos would still be worth $63 Billion dollars.

      No, he would be worth roughly zero dollars as the value of his stock plummeted, half the workforce quit, and the company went tits up.

    2. Re:Livable Wages by sdinfoserv · · Score: 1

      Sorry, but Gates, Buffet and 12 other billionaires signed a pledge to give most of their fortune away.
      https://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/3...
      Bezos refused to sign (as did Bloomberg). They are greedy self serving pigs.

  14. Re:Pay taxes and pay your workers living wages by kenh · · Score: 1

    Why? He's giving a small percentage of his wealth to help the poorest among us - that seems very "un-prick like" to me. Why is there a need for this? Why haven't the taxpayers in each community focused more money on these groups?

    Sure, it's only 1/80th of his calculated net worth of $160 BN, but even that low percentage is more than 47% of US tax filers pay in income taxes (which would be ZERO, as in they get a refund that exceeds the taxes withheld from their paychecks the previous year).

    --
    Ken
  15. Re:When I get rich, I'm going to help the smart ki by elrous0 · · Score: 1

    And yes, I'm pretty sore about it.

    --
    SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
  16. Re:So. . . by kenh · · Score: 1

    This man is pathetic, just another would-be American aristocrat throwing his money around

    ...and spending it on something the ones standing in judgement of him refuse to - education for the poorest among us. If the taxpayers were properly funding public school education there wouldn't be a need for someone like Bezos to step in and donate...

    --
    Ken
  17. Re:Do you even know what American education is? by kenh · · Score: 1

    Not in Newark, NJ - Mark Z. gave them $100M and it's all better now!

    And let's not forget how Obama and his domestic terrorist neighbor Ayres whipped the schools in the south side of Chicago into shape with all that Annenberg money.

    --
    Ken
  18. Haha, actually it's the other way around by raymorris · · Score: 2

    That was funny.

    Of course in reality it's the other way around. Amazon and Bezos pay more taxes this way.
    Whoever hands out the money doesn't pay income taxes on it. If Amazon gave the money to employees as paychecks, then Amazon wouldn't pay income taxes on it.*

    What they've done instead is Bezos is giving it away AFTER Amazon already paid taxes on it and then distributed it to shareholders (Bezos). So Amazon made money, paid the corporate income tax, distributed it to shareholders, then Bezos gave away some of his portion, after the corporate tax was paid.

    * Amazon DOES pay FICA taxes on paychecks, which is 7.65%. That's much less than the 22% they actually paid by taking it as profit.

  19. Re:Kenh the cocksucker apologist with the straw ma by kenh · · Score: 1

    I said "if", I was pointing out that even if you took all the money "the rich" have you couldn't address the problem permanently.

    --
    Ken
  20. Re:damned if you do, damned if you don't by king+neckbeard · · Score: 1

    Who is praising the Kochs, Muroch, or Trump here, outside of obvious trolls?

    The answer is simple. You can't have an amount of wealth that couldn't possibly be earned without drawing plenty of legitimate criticism.

    --
    This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
  21. Children are the customers? by pchasco · · Score: 1

    The problem with public education is exactly this mentality. Somewhere down the line public schools switched from being places of discipline and learning into places of accommodation. âoeThe customer is always right.â Teachers go to work every day being tasked with more and more responsibilities in order to pick up the slack of parents who not only fail to do the bare minimum for their chidrenâ(TM)s education, these parents actively sabotage it. The moment a teacher attempts to hold a parent or student even minimally accountable for a childâ(TM)s education, the parent comes in and raises hell with administration and basically makes a teacherâ(TM)s life miserable. They do this in front of their little angels, this teaching the kid that they do not need to respect teachers, administration, or education, just continuing the cycle. Schools are feeding kids breakfast, lunch, snack, providing school supplies. Teachers are put in a position where they have to not only educate, but teach kids hygiene, be emotional counselors, therapists, etc. I personally know teachers who were buying clothes and carpooling children because the parents werenâ(TM)t doing it. What we need is a system where parents are held accountable to their childrenâ(TM)s education.

    1. Re: Children are the customers? by pchasco · · Score: 1

      Obviously you have no idea what you are talking about. And why are you discussing ethnicity? I didnâ(TM)t have any ethnicity in mind. Why did you? I didnâ(TM)t say children donâ(TM)t need our help. All I said is that parents are not doing their share, and it is not fair to ask teachers to pick up the slack. Which is what happens. I know. Personally. What happened in your great-grandmotherâ(TM)s 1940s or whatever one-room schoolhouse has nothing to do with the fact that parents send their kids to class without supplies, donâ(TM)t help them with their homework, and freak out if you ask them to put in any effort on their own. Parents of ALL ethnicities do it.

    2. Re: Children are the customers? by pchasco · · Score: 1

      I see what you did. You attempted to read between the lines and came away with a lot of impressions of things I didnâ(TM)t actually say. Try just sticking to the words written.

    3. Re:Children are the customers? by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      If Mr. Bezos wants to help education in America I say more power to him. We can use all the help we can get.

      If Mr. Bezos wants to help education in America, he can pay a living wage. Then the parents will have time to pay attention to their children.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  22. Not spending it on something pointless by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 1

    I submitted this story because at least he's not spending $2B on something stupid and pointless like some gigantic mechanical clock inside a mountain somewhere.

    I need to build a new bike; wonder if I can hit him up for $1500? Seems like he could afford it..

  23. Re:So. . . by poptix · · Score: 1

    There is no level of 'proper public school funding'. It's always 'more'.

    The city of Minneapolis currently employs 1 adult for every 5 children, yet nearly half of their classrooms are considered overcrowded (30+).

    And then there's crap like this in Wyoming:
    https://www.openthebooks.com/b...

    Public schools are like any other government operation, extremely top heavy, "underfunded" and shit for service. The only thing that keeps them open are young bleeding heart teachers that are willing to work themselves to death.

    I'd support a 100% school tax increase if it came with the stipulation that *all* of those taxes went to teachers who are actually in a classroom all day.

    --
    Just because you disagree doesn't mean it's not true.
  24. America pays CEOs in stock by rsilvergun · · Score: 1

    so he effectively does. We do that so they can dodge the higher taxes on income vs capital gains. As a result the economy is constantly booming and busting thanks to stock buy backs and mass layoffs used to boost stock price. The groundwork for all this was laid out by Reagan and continued by Bill Clinton & Bush Jr (Bush Sr mostly left it alone, but he didn't help undo any of it).

    I am by no means clueless. I'm fully aware of how our distorted economy works. I'm also aware of what Bezo's is doing. Bernie's been getting some traction by pointing out my tax dollars subsidize his horrendous working conditions. That his workforce couldn't function as human beings without $150 billion a year of subsidies I (and you too) pay for.

    Bezo's is doing two things. First, drumming up some free press. But second and just as important, he's giving guys like you an out. See, somewhere you know that the correct solution is to force Bezos to pay a living wage and end both abuse of his workers and the taxpayers. But somewhere else you don't want to see minimum wage go up. The most common reason is you're afraid prices are going to go up and, statistically, you're probably living paycheck to paycheck (70-80% of Americans do depending on how you run the numbers). Like me you're using Amazon's borderline slave labor to buy things you need at discount to make up for declining wages.

    None of this is the correct solution. It's all just more supply side economics. In the end it'll continue to chip away at your standard of living. It's a battle you will not win. What's needed now more than ever (thanks Nixon, for the slogan) is _demand_ side economics. It's either that or we, the working class, will just keep losing ground....

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
  25. Re: Alvinrod doesn't even have a job besides dick by c6gunner · · Score: 1

    Bullshit, the richest pay a smaller percentage of their income in taxes than the poorest by a factor of magnitudes.

    The poorest pay zero. What's "a factor of magnitudes" smaller percentage than zero?

  26. Re:When I get rich, I'm going to help the smart ki by Whorhay · · Score: 1

    Smart is not the opposite of poor. You are making a huge assumption there that a poor kid can't be smart. I obviously can't speak for every school system. But even the broke as hell school system where I live has special educational tracks laid out for the smart kids to follow. Hell, they even have entire schools that are dedicated to just the smart kids. Additionally when it comes to getting into and paying for college the smart kids are by and large always at an advantage over their peers.

    If you were half as smart as you evidently think you are, you wouldn't be sweating the diversity and quota hiring systems some employers use. Getting rich is a lot more about knowing how to manage your finances than getting lucky by catching a sweet job.

  27. Retained earnings increase stockholder equity by raymorris · · Score: 1

    That's true. What Amazon has done is retain the earnings, meaning the company increases in value. That means each share of stock increases in value. Retained earnings are of course taxable profit, so the tax situation comes out the same as a dividend when Bezos liquidates some of the stock value to make a charitable contribution.

  28. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 1

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  29. Very bad idea by jd · · Score: 1

    Making kids "the customers" was tried in Britain. Standards have collapsed, costs have skyrocketed, the teaching profession has gone from being respected to being scorned.

    Academies in Britain are amongst the worst schools. Even allowing for their efforts to rig exam rankings, they're still behind state schools. And this is to be expected, education is either about money or it is about learning. It cannot be about both. And if it is about money, it will always be inferior.

    --
    It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
  30. No, they do not by rsilvergun · · Score: 2

    the poorest still pay sales tax, often when they buy food and medicine. If you go one step up from the poorest and into the working poor you'll find they pay a very high percentage of taxes. State sales tax are not usually progressive. They pay property taxes, Vehicle license taxes, the aforementioned sales tax, etc. The federal programs intended to counterbalance this ("earned income") have been cut back to the point where full time minimum wage disqualifies you. Hell, Missouri just put a work requirement in place for Medicaid but didn't raise the ceiling before you don't qualify for it. Meaning you're forced to go to work to keep access to healthcare but then lose it if you meet the requirement. The poor are well and truly fucked.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
    1. Re: No, they do not by c6gunner · · Score: 1

      the poorest still pay sales tax, often when they buy food and medicine

      Yeah, that really cuts into their food stamps and welfare cheque.

      I think you're confused about who is actually paying those taxes.

  31. Amazon's principles by manu0601 · · Score: 2

    Bezos said that the preschools will be directly operated by the organization and "use the same set of principles that have driven Amazon."

    You mean, like employee burn out?

    Come one, if you want to fix education, just pay your taxes so that schools get more money.

  32. Abuse/gaming by Qango · · Score: 1

    Here in Australia, a number of well-meaning public projects have been derailed because they had loopholes that allowed gaming of the scheme by beneficiaries, or were gamed or abused by insiders. I hope Bezos includes a lot of checks and balances in this scheme.

    1. Re:Abuse/gaming by jezwel · · Score: 1

      Here in Australia, a number of well-meaning public projects have been derailed because they had loopholes that allowed gaming of the scheme by beneficiaries, or were gamed or abused by insiders. I hope Bezos includes a lot of checks and balances in this scheme.

      It's not easy when it's the politicians doing the gaming, on behalf of themselves - either through donations back to their party, or as jobs after they finally get booted out for their blatant corruption and/or incompetence.

      To name a few:

      http://www.abc.net.au/news/201...
      https://www.news.com.au/financ...
      https://www.brisbanetimes.com....
      https://www.brisbanetimes.com....
      https://www.computerworld.com....